Linux

It still causes me uncomfortable dispepsia to admit that Microsoft’s directory coup worked so well. Since Windows desktop systems are so challenging to own without it, Microsoft succeeded at pushing Active Directory into wide deployment in the business world. As advocates for desktop Linux promote fitness and readiness for use in the business world, few seem to surmise what a strong fortress Microsoft has built around Windows.

At this point there are really only three major contenders on the desktop market; Windows, GNU/Linux and Mac OS X. It is a known fact that Windows still holds the vast majority of the market for reasons which are beyond this article, but pretty much come down to Microsoft's sheer power rather than the quality of their OS. GNU/Linux has recently become ready for the desktop in terms of general usability and user friendliness required by desktop users. Sure there are some glitches, but those aren't anymore the major constraint to its adoption.

Did you get to attend the Flashforward conference in Austin, Texas, USA? If you did, you got to see the first public demonstration of Flash Player 9 running on Linux. Check this entry in the Flashforward blog for a photo (albeit backwards) depicting Adobe Flash Player 9 running in Firefox on a laptop running Ubuntu. The demo site shown is the designed-for-Flash-8 Nike Air site.

So you just bought and assembled a brand-new AMD64 workstation. The only decision that remains is whether to install a 64-bit Linux distribution, or stick with comfortable, tried-and-true IA-32. If you are seeking an easy answer to that question, I can't help you. Running 64-bit Linux has its pros and cons. Unfortunately, a lot of the cons are out of your hands -- but they're not really Linux's fault, either.

China has only 3,000 skilled Linux software engineers and most of them do not experience professional Linux trainings, according to China Electronics. China’s Linux firm flagship RedFlag has about 70 Linux developers.

In 2005, China’s Linux market reached USD 11.8 million, up 27% over 2004, according to IDC report. IDC also expects in China the Linux market to grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34% to USD 51 million in 2010 from 2006.

Ubuntu Linux 6.06 LTS—the free operating system that eWEEK Labs recently named the current Linux desktop champ—recently hit a sizable pothole on the road to enterprise-class stability.

In a bug-fix update to the distribution's xserver-xorg-core component—the system application responsible for serving Ubuntu's graphical environment—the Ubuntu project team disabled the GUIs of many users upon their next reboot.

There's a poll over at linux.inet.hr trying to discover which of the available file systems for Linux are the most popular. Come visit, vote, see the results immediately. More votes - more correct result!